National cemetery plaque memorializes Tuskegee Airman

DIXON — A Tuskegee Airman who was shot down over North Korea during the first year of the Korean War will be the name on the first memorial plaque that will be put on the new memorial wall at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery on July 25.

The ceremony, which is open to the public, will begin at 11 a.m. at Committal Shelter 1 for the military honors and fly-over portion of the ceremony. It will then move to the memorial wall and ossuary for the viewing of the plaque.

The memorial wall and ossuary is a new service offered by the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. The ossuary will be for cremains to be placed as an option for those who want to scatter their loved one’s ashes. Rather than scattering, the cremains will be put in the ossuary and a memorial plaque will be mounted on the wall.

Newman Golden, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, graduated from the Tuskegee Flight School in August 1944 and was sent to Italy to fly a P-51 Mustang with the 99th Fighter Squadron. He was flying a mission over Austria when mechanical problems forced him to bail out over Wels, Austria, on March 20, 1945. He was captured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war in Stalag VIIA.

When the Korean War started, he became a P-51D Mustang night fighter with the 39th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. He was over North Korea when his fighter took a direct hit from anti-aircraft fire, burst into flames and crashed. He was initially listed as missing in action, but his status was changed on March 31, 1954, to killed in action, body not recovered.

The Sacramento Valley National Cemetery is located at 5810 Midway Road, west of Dixon. For more information, call 693-2460.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or [email protected] Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ithompsondr.

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Ian Thompson

Ian Thompson has worked for the Daily Republic longer than he cares to remember. A native of Oregon and a graduate of the University of Oregon, he pines for the motherland still. He covers Vacaville and Travis Air Force Base for the Daily Republic. He is an avid military history buff, wargamer and loves the great outdoors.